Perspective is a wonderful tool for understanding. Minnesota writer Thomas D. Peacock's new book "The Wolf's Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves" provides new dimensions and wrinkles to ancient stories and modern realities by simply putting them into the words of a wolf.
The wolf in question is Zhi-shay, the Uncle wolf who we come to learn lives with his pack on a hill in the woods somewhere around the Fond du Lac. He's older, nine winters he says, "certainly old for a wolf."
Yet as the story keeper for the pack, the one who knows and passes on the tales to the pups, he brings ancient wisdom and understanding which goes back uncountable generations. And his understanding is not just of the wolves, but also the humans with whom they share an unbreakable bond.
Peacock, who is a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Anishinaabe Ojibwe, is a two time Minnesota Book Award winner who has written prolifically. He uses Zhi-shay to tell the Ojibwe creation story. He then wraps more recent history around stories which highlight Ojibwe teachings, and the Seven Fires Prophesies, all told from a lupine point of view.
The old wolf's characterizations of human life, strange behavior, and obsessions with machines are sometimes hilarious, and as pointed as the pups teeth.
Yet the book's light tone belies the depth and power of the stories, which bear underlying sadness and longing. "The Wolf's Trail" will be treasured by children and adults alike, likely for different reasons. And as with all the best stories it will draw a reader back again and again.
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